Tag Archives: GOP

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With ‘friends’ like these …

Donald John Trump Sr. needs all the friends he can find on Capitol Hill.

Why, then, does the president of the United States insist on waging rhetorical war with the leader of the U.S. Senate’s Republican majority? Why is he picking a fight with Mitch McConnell, a master Senate parliamentarian and a guy known as one who can move legislation?

That’s what Trump is doing.

I’m going to put my money on McConnell getting the better of this battle of wits.

McConnell was mildly critical of the president for setting “excessive expectations” for his legislative agenda. Trump then fired back — via Twitter, of course! — this message: “Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?”

You see, this is another demonstration of what the president fails to acknowledge. He is the leader of the Republican Party. He’s the head of the executive branch of government. He owns the GOP’s failure to enact an Affordable Care Act replacement bill as much as the congressional Republican leadership.

Except that he refuses to take ownership on that failure. Or any failure, for that matter.

This deteriorating relationship is going to bring great harm to the president’s ability to enact any kind of legislative agenda. The more he fights with members of his own party, the weaker he appears across the land.

Democrats, meanwhile, should follow the time-honored credo of refusing to butt in when principals of the other party are fighting so openly.

What’s more, if the special counsel’s investigation into that “Russia thing” gets any hotter, and it produces actionable results, the president is going to seriously need friends on his side of the aisle. This intra-Republican squabbling isn’t going to help him.

This might be where I should say: Awww, cry me a river.

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GOP turning on its own guy in the White House

Ana Navarro is a well-known Republican “strategist” who makes no secret of her disdain for Donald John Trump Sr., the nation’s top Republican and the president of the United States of America.

Navarro is a frequent guest on TV news shows. She said on CNN this morning that Trump needs to stop lying, stop tweeting and start acting like a president. He demeans the office and disrespects the majesty of the position he holds, according to Navarro.

Why is this noteworthy? It’s because Navarro appears to be echoing a growing number of Republicans who are fed up to here with the president’s antics, his petulance and his constant harangues against the media and his political opposition.

Read more about Navarro’s rant here.

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard is another prominent Republican who simply cannot stomach the president’s behavior. Other notable GOP stalwarts — such as columnist George Will and former congressman/turned TV host Joe Scarborough — have abandoned their party because of Trump.

What do these individuals have in common with each other and with millions of other Americans? They’re all political conservatives who seek to adhere to the principles they’ve believed in. Trump has no guiding principle. All he wants is to “win.”

The fight over replacing the Affordable Care Act provides a sparkling example. The president didn’t know what was in the GOP plan to replace. He never discussed its details. He couldn’t parse the differences between the ACA and whatever it was the GOP wanted to enact in its place. All he wanted was a bill sent to his desk; Trump said he had “pen in hand” to sign it.

When it wasn’t forthcoming, he tore into Congress. He eviscerated the Republican leadership for its failure to enact a law. Did he take ownership of his own failure? Not in the least!

Now he is facing growing hostility among his “base.” Polls show his support among his most loyal supporters is shrinking. Trump won’t acknowledge those survey results, though, because they portray him in a negative light. He calls them “fake news,” as if he has any understanding of his own role in promoting real-life fake news at every turn.

GOP “strategists” and other party activists seem to have had their fill. As Ana Navarro has said: “Start telling the truth. Start taking your job seriously. Stop exaggerating, stop outright lying and then repeating it.”

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Sen. Flake speaks hard truth to fellow conservatives

Political conservatives have been scolded by one of their own.

Are they listening? Are they taking heed? Will they act differently in the future?

The scolding comes from U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, a lifelong Arizona Republican, who says conservatives were shamefully silent while the man who would become president told the ongoing lie about Barack Obama’s place of birth.

Flake also turned his fire on conservatives who chanted “Lock her up!” at Donald J. Trump’s campaign rallies.

Conservatives have misbehaved and have failed to follow in the footsteps of Flake’s political mentor, the late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. Indeed, Flake’s new book, “Conscience of a Conservative,” mirrors the title of Goldwater’s 1960 book.

Flake is concerned about the fate and future of the Republican Party, which is now being led by a president with no apparent ideological compass. Flake wants Donald Trump to settle down, to demonstrate some discipline, to allow the White House staff operation to function as it should — and to curb his use of Twitter to make policy pronouncements.

Flake said he’ll continue to criticize Trump when he deserves and will support him when he deserves that, too.

He does pose a fascinating question about the conservative movement. He wonders how actual conservatives can continue to support someone who espouses “protectionist” trade policies, seeks to isolate the nation from the rest of the world and wants to spend enormous amounts of public money with funds that are missing from the federal Treasury.

I’ll add as well that conservatives ought to re-examine their support for someone who has spoken so crassly and profanely about his political opponents and behaved so boorishly in his own personal life.

My hope is they would look inward. My fear — which is being demonstrated daily — is that they’ll continue to stand by their man.

local news, State news

Patrick misfires on municipal government critique

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Oh, that Dan Patrick. He needs a lesson in Civics 101.

The Texas lieutenant governor has now laid blame for “all the problems” facing America at the feet of mayors, the vast majority of whom he says are Democrats. Oh, did I mention that Patrick is a Republican? There. I just did.

Patrick told Fox Business News that Democrats have made such a mess of municipal government that cities’ woes are spilling over into other walks of life. He said citizens are happy with governments at the state level. The cities? They’ve gone to hell, thanks to Democrats, according to the sometimes-bombastic lieutenant governor.

Shall we offer the lesson now? Sure, why not?

I’ll concede that there are pockets of municipal dysfunction around the country that have occurred under the watch of mayors elected as Democrats. Is that an exclusively Democratic problem? No. It is not. Republican-run cities have fiscal and crime issues with which they must deal, too. They have potholes that need to be filled and street signals that need to function properly.

What’s more, many thousands of mayors and city council members are elected on non-partisan ballots. Partisanship has no place in municipal governance. Cities with home-rule charters are governed by those who set aside partisan differences and who seek to set policies based on community interests, not based on whether they have positive or negative impacts on certain neighborhoods based on partisan affiliation or leaning.

I’m reminded at this moment of an Amarillo mayoral race some years ago in which a challenger to then-Mayor Kel Seliger called on all “good Republicans” to elect her instead of the incumbent. Mary Alice Brittain sent out pamphlets imploring GOP voters to turn out that spring to oust the mayor.

I was working at the time as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News and we reminded our readers to turn their backs on the ignorant rants of that challenger, given that Amarillo is one of most Texas cities governed by non-partisan mayors and city council members.

Seliger won re-election that year by a huge margin; Brittain disappeared and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Dan Patrick is entitled to espouse his partisan bias. I understand he’s a faithful Republican officeholder. He’s got a tough job running the Texas Senate, which is meeting at the moment with the House of Representatives in a special session of the Legislature.

But, c’mon Dan! Knock off the broad-brush blame game against local government officials who are doing their best to cope with the problems facing every city in America regardless of party affiliation.

As the Texas Tribune reports: But “the fact that city elections are nonpartisan is one of the greatest things about city government,” said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. “We like to say that potholes aren’t Democratic or Republican… it costs the same amount regardless of ideology.” 

Patrick should know better. I fear he does not.

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Is bipartisanship making a comeback in the Senate?

Oh, I do hope my ears and eyes aren’t deceiving me.

I’ve heard during the past day or so that the failure of the Republican-authored bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has produced a remarkable event.

It is that Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington are going to actually talk to each other about how they might find a path toward improving the ACA.

Alexander chairs the Senate Health Committee and is committed to working with Murray to commence bipartisan hearings next month that would fix some elements of the existing health care law.

I do believe this is how effective government is designed to work.

The Senate Republican caucus sought to craft an ACA replacement without any Democratic help. The House of Representatives did approve its version of an ACA replacement, also without Democratic input or votes. It fell to the Senate to complete the job. The Senate failed when they lost three GOP senators, killing the totally partisan measure.

Now the Senate is blundering its way toward a compromise solution. Sens. Alexander and Murray are leading the way.

They’re both Capitol Hill veterans. They’ve been around long enough to know how the place can actually work. Alexander and Murray aren’t alone in that knowledge, to be sure.

It well might be time for Republican congressional leaders — in both legislative chambers — to accept that the ACA is the law of the land and that it’s likely to remain the law of the land.

Many of us out here in the heartland have noted that the ACA is far from perfect. Its chief proponent, former President Obama, has implored Republicans to find a bipartisan solution to repair the law. GOP lawmakers, though, have been hung up on repealing the ACA.

A one-party solution hasn’t worked out for the Republicans.

There now appears some momentum building for a return to the proven strategy of working together — with both parties sitting at the same table — to find some common ground.

That’s how you legislate.

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Open wide, Mr. President, and swallow this bill

Congress has just force-fed Donald J. Trump a heaping helping of his least-favorite veggie, chased down with a bitter concoction of political reality.

The president signed a bill that imposes tough new sanctions on Russia. He doesn’t like the bill. He signed it anyway, then took a series of shots at Congress for — as the president implied — undermining executive authority to conduct foreign policy.

Poor guy. What lawmakers have done is hold him more accountable for the way he deals with Russia, the nation that meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Trump continues to remain virtually silent on the meddling matter. He has said utterly nothing in public about the harsh retaliation that Vladimir Putin recently took in response to the sanctions bill; the Russian president ordered the expulsion of 755 U.S. diplomats and foreign service staffers. Trump’s reaction? Silence, nothing.

So now we have imposed more sanctions on Russia. The president needs congressional authority to lighten them, which gets under Trump’s paper-thin skin.

He lashed out at Congress for its inability to approve a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and said he, alone, is able to negotiate better deals with foreign powers than those nincompoops on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, the probe into Russia’s meddling continues. The president needs to let that investigation proceed full throttle. If it produces nothing, then Donald Trump can crow himself hoarse. If it comes up with something, um, incriminating, then he has to deal with whatever consequences fall into his lap.

If the president isn’t going to speak out on behalf of our electoral system, then it behooves Congress to articulate a nation’s outrage. That is what lawmakers have done with this sanctions bill — and they have forced it down the president’s throat. Good for them!

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Republicans become party of diverse thought

I want to offer a good word or three about today’s Republican Party.

Yes, I’ve been beating them up a good bit of late. The GOP has deserved the drubbing. However, I want to speak to something that became evident after Donald John Trump Sr. tweeted out his decision to ban transgender Americans from serving in the armed forces.

The Republican Party has exhibited a profound sense of diverse thought on that issue.

On one side, we have heard some of the more predictable reactions. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who’s now energy secretary in the Trump administration — said he supports the president “totally” in his decision to ban transgender citizens from service in defense of the nation. Fellow Texan, state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — a fellow not known for thoughtful rhetoric — said the armed forces are “no place for social experimentation.”

Then came the push back from other notable Republican pols. Many members of Congress expressed disappointment and dismay that Trump would use Twitter to announce such a staggering policy shift.

Then came a highly personal statement from U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah lawmaker known as one of the Senate’s more conservative members. Transgender individuals do not “choose” to change their sexual identity, Hatch said. “They are born that way,” he added. Sen. Hatch said it is unfair to hold that against them.

The GOP has demonstrated considerable diversity as well in this debate over whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The moderate wing of the Republican caucus dislikes many of the provisions contained in the GOP-authored bill; it cuts too much from Medicaid, for example. The TEA Party/conservative wing of the caucus dislikes the overhaul because it doesn’t go far enough in repealing the ACA, the signature legislation authored by Democrats during the Obama administration.

Democrats, meanwhile, speak with a single voice on those and many other issues. It must be Democrats’ universal disdain for Trump and the fact that he managed to win the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Believe me, I understand their anger on that one!

However, the Republican Party has shown itself to be more willing to expose its differences in the months since Trump became president.

For that, I applaud Republicans.

Oh, and yes, the stalling of the Trump “agenda” — whatever it is — has played a key part in earning my praise.

local news, State news

Bathroom Bill is a huge error

I am going to stand foursquare, solidly behind my former colleague Jon Mark Beilue, who has written a profoundly reasonable rebuke of Senate Bill 3, which the Texas Senate approved on a partisan vote.

SB 3 is the so-called Bathroom Bill. As Beilue notes, it is rooted in unfounded fear. Read Beilue’s column in the Amarillo Globe-News here.

I’m not an “embarrassed conservative” who voted twice for Ronald Reagan, as Beilue describes himself. I am an unapologetic progressive who is horrified that state government would waste its time — and my money — on this discriminatory legislation.

The bill would require transgender individuals to use public restrooms that comport with the gender assigned on their birth certificate. That’s right. A burly dude who once was a woman has to use the women’s room; a hot babe who came into this world as a boy has to use the men’s room.

How in the name of all that is reasonable does one enforce such a law? Who is going to check to see if a woman has all her appropriate body parts? Who’ll do the same thing to a man?

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who runs the Senate, keeps yapping about protecting women from sexual assault in the restroom. The police report zero incidents of such crimes occurring; senior police officials oppose SB 3.

So does House Speaker Joe Straus, whose chamber gets this bill next. What is the House going to do with this monstrosity? That remains the Question of the Day.

All 31 Texas senators voted on SB 3. Twenty-one of them approved it. I don’t yet know this with absolute certainty, but I’m sure that means state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo joined his GOP brethren in approving this hideous legislation.

And that, dear reader, provides me with one of my greatest disappointments, that Sen. Seliger would sign on to this travesty.

I do share Beilue’s concern, though, about the fate of “sane, reasonable” conservatism. It has been trampled to death by far-right fear mongers.

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Yep, Mitch, it’s time to ‘move on’

Mitch McConnell sounds like a man who has cried “Uncle!” in his long-running effort to toss out a law that is linked to a man he once vowed he would make a “one-term president.”

The U.S. Senate majority leader didn’t succeed in limiting former President Obama to a single term; nor did he succeed in repealing his signature piece of domestic legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

It’s time to “move on,” he said this week after the latest — and most dramatic — failure to repeal the ACA.

Yes, Mr. Leader, it is time. Sure, you now have a chance to tinker with the ACA, to improve it. The Senate’s top Republican can work with Democrats — for a change! — in finding some common ground.

But the task of legislating, which McConnell knows as well as any one in the Senate, involves lots of complicated things. It involves building and rebuilding relationships with your colleagues from the “other party.” It means you have to deal with myriad crises that crop up around the world without a moment’s notice; and brother, we have a lot of ’em, right, Mitch?

It also means that the leader also has constituents back home in Kentucky who need matters dealt with that concern only them and only their state. I am going to presume that McConnell has a Senate staff that is tasked with tending to those needs on his behalf.

The Battle of the Affordable Care Act is over, Mitch. You lost. The other side held together.

The Senate can fix what’s wrong with the ACA, keep its name, and deal forthrightly with a heaping plate of issues that need its attention.

Oh, yes. We also have that “Russia Thing” that needs our attention.

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OK, Mitch … time to get to work — with Democrats!

Mitch McConnell isn’t going to take any advice from me, given that he likely won’t even know I’m offering it.

I’ll go to bat anyway. Here’s my advice to the U.S. Senate majority leader, who has just witnessed the collapse of the Republican-authored overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

If I were Mitch, I’d get on the phone in the next day or two. Pick up the phone, Mitch, and place a call to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

McConnell would do well to say something like this:

“Hello, Chuck? This is Mitch. OK, pal. You win. You won this fight. You held your Democratic caucus together to fend off our effort to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something we crafted all on our own. I get that we didn’t do what we should have done at the beginning, which is seek Democrats’ advice and counsel on how to replace the Affordable Care Act.

“But look, Chuck. I know how this system is supposed to work. I’ve been around the Senate a long time, as you have and I understand fully that cooperation and compromise aren’t four-letter words. Except that I’ve got that damn TEA Party wing of my caucus that keeps giving me the dickens whenever I talk to you folks.

“Hell, man, Lyndon Johnson worked the Senate like a craftsman; he played senators like fiddles. He got things done when he ran the Senate.

“So, here’s my idea. Let’s all sit down together. I want to toss out the ACA. You support it in principle. But surely you have problems with it. Those damn premiums are too high. Insurers are bailing out in some states. Patients can’t always get the docs they want to treat them.

“Why don’t we put our heads together to fix the Affordable Care Act. We can call it whatever we wish. I tried to get it tossed. It’s still the law of the land. It’s going to remain the law of the land possibly until hell freezes over. But I’m willing to work with you to fix what you and I both know — along with members of our respective caucuses — that the ACA isn’t perfect. Far from it. It needs fixing.

“Are you in?”

Chuck Schumer, having heard all of this, likely would answer:

“Welcome aboard, Mitch.”